The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo was always going to be a tricky sell to a mainstream audience, what with its hard R-rating and lengthy running time. However, MGM were probably hoping for better than the loss they've ended up with.

The studio told Deadline that despite taking $231 million worldwide, the film still ended up, "below our expectations, and we booked a modest loss."

This of course will have a knock-on effect for planned sequels The Girl Who Played With Fire and The Girl Who Kicked The Hornet's Nest, both of which are still scheduled to go ahead, "assuming we can achieve better economics".

That may well lead to the studio opting against re-hiring David Fincher to direct, although that in itself would cost MGM $5 million, as Fincher currently holds an option of the first sequel, said to be his favourite story of the trilogy.

Whether or not Fincher stays (and given that he and the studio were reportedly at loggerheads throughout much of Dragon Tattoo's production, it's extremely possible that he may not) it's likely that The Girl Who Played With Fire will have to come in at significantly lower than the $90 million budget that had initially been bandied about.

MGM will likely wait to see how the film performs on DVD before pulling the trigger, but for now, a Fincher-directed trilogy is far from a done deal... Source: www.totalfilm.com

Scarlett Johansson was too sexy for Fincher's Dragon Tattoo [18th October 2011 11:51:30]

Director David Fincher says Scarlett Johansson was too sexy to play Lisbeth Salander in his remake of The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo.

"The thing with Scarlett is, you can't wait for her to take her clothes off," Fincher said.

To put that into context (and to make it sound a bit less weird), we think Fincher was trying to say that the character has to be boyish and vulnerable before she shows her other side.

Let's try that again...

"Look, we saw some amazing people. Scarlett Johansson was great. It was a great audition, I'm telling you. But the thing with Scarlett is, you can't wait for her to take her clothes off," Fincher told Vogue.

"Salander should be like E. T.," he added. "If you put E. T. dolls out before anyone had seen the movie, they would say, 'What is this little squishy thing?' Well, you know what? When he hides under the table and he grabs the Reese's Pieces, you love him! It has to be like that." OK, he made it weird again. Source: www.totalfilm.com

Trent Reznor will score David Fincher's Dragon Tattoo [8th January 2011 04:38:04]

Former Nine Inch Nails frontman Trent Reznor will be reuniting with David Fincher to score the director's upcoming redo of The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo.

Reznor confirmed that he would be scoring the movie in a chat with Times Talks, which is extremely exciting news for anyone who loved The Social Network soundtrack. And who didn't?

His work on the Facebook movie was one of the most compelling scores of the year: pulsing techno beats helped drive the tense narrative, but he still found room for some haunting and touching tracks.

Only Daft Punk's TRON Legacy came close in terms of OST buzz last year.

Reznor seems like a perfect fit for Dragon Tattoo, on which he's been working for six weeks, and he has told fans to "expect something different".

Frankly we can't wait to see what he comes up for this one, which will surely be one of our most-anticipated soundtracks of the year.

Fincher's film is set for release in December 2011. Daniel Craig is starring as Mikael Blomkvist, while Rooney Mara nabbed the coveted role of Lisbeth Salander. Source: www.totalfilm.com

Dragon Tattoo director not happy with remake [9th November 2010 23:20:14]

The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo director Niels Arden Oplev has revealed he's extremely sceptical about David Fincher's currently-shooting Hollywood remake. Source: www.totalfilm.com